When Sustainable Agriculture Ends: Can MATS Help Substituting Cash Crops with Mining?
Christian Häberli, WTI | 4 March 2024
Image 1: Agricultural marketing co-operative society Mruwia (Uru-East, Kilimanjaro, Tanzania)
Image 2: Tchibo Machare Coffee Estate (Tanzania)
In many countries, small farmers cannot feed themselves. The 2023 mid-term review of the Global Indicator Framework for the SDGs showed that the world is not on track to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030. MATS Case Studies show insufficient progress in reaching sustainability: present production and market conditions, regulators and trade restrictions, operator size and stakeholder involvement, fail to provide food security to small farmers in Ghana, Tanzania, or Brazil. In such cases, will a shift away from food and cash crops to sustainable forest management, mining, manufacturing, or tourism provide equitable trade and sustainable income of poor producers? This at least is a finding made in a 2023 field study by Suresh Babu and colleagues: “Towards sustainable food crop production: Drivers of shift from crop production to mining activities in Ghana’s Arable Lands”
MATS, at any rate, will be well advised not to rule out non-farm solutions where sustainable food production ends. However, the transition to and activities around forests, mining and tourism should be managed sustainably, too.
Christian Häberli is a Fellow of the World Trade Institute (WTI). The WTI is one of the 14 MATS partners and plays a key role in producing deliverables such as discussion paper on the political economy on trade regimes and discussion paper on the feasibility of changes in trade regimes. In addition, WTI has conducted the MATS/Ukraine project “Repairing Broken Food Trade Routes Ukraine – Africa”. For more info about WTI activities here.